A "secular Bible" draws readers, controversy

[cali]

"The Good Book" – intended to serve as a secular Bible – focuses on ethics but not religion.



By Marjorie Kehe / April 15, 2011

"The Good Book: A Humanist Bible" is British academic A.C. Grayling’s effort to codify human ethics without making any reference to deity. The book is also a red-hot bestseller, reaching the top of Amazon's bestseller list and heating up online discussion boards just as the Easter season approaches.


What Grayling has done is to blend together thousands of texts from hundreds of different authors, collections, and traditions – a compilation which he calls “distillations of the wisdom and experience of humankind.” Grayling, who is an atheist, says his intent was to craft a book of ethics by relying on the wisdom of philosophers and writers rather than that of prophets and apostles.

The almost 600-page "Good Book" is arranged, like the Bible, with double columns, short verses, and chapter headings with some very Biblical resonance: "Genesis, Wisdom, Parables, Concord, Lamentations, Consolations, Sages, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, The Lawgiver, Acts, Epistles, The Good."


"The Good Book" also includes a secular version of the Ten Commandments: "Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibility, respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous: at least, sincerely try."
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http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2011/0415/A-secular-Bible-draws-readers-controversy

[SpiralHawk]

1. Commandment XI - Thou Shalt Not Shove Thy Beliefs Down Others Throats

I think the Evango-Fundies tripped Mel-Brooks-Moses on his way down they mountain, and this is was on the tablet they made him bobble and break.

[Buzz Clik]

3. XV. If thou believe not, just let it go.

[Buzz Clik]

2. Most religions already have a "good book." Atheists don't need or want one. Who will buy it?

Where is Billy Mays when we need him most?

[cali]

5. if I had the spare bucks, I'd buy it.

I admire Grayling. I think it looks interesting

[Mumble]

4. Where is the controversy?

Do the religious feel threatened by everybody and everything. Is their "faith" that weak, that they can't tolerate any voice of reason.

[NightWatcher]

6. most fundies only want to use their specific translation of a translation of a translation.....

Did you ever make a copy of a copy of a copy? notice how it gets harder and harder to understand after a while?

Most fundies want their own King James biased translation. And on that translation of a translation, they'll base their dogma on the details of a twisted word here and a twisted phrase there.

And yes, they are threatened by everthing, for a group claiming so much "faith" most of them lack it.

[Angry Dragon]

7. YES

[JoePhilly]

8. Many fundies see your unwillingness to believe as they do to be an attack, by you, on them.

[golddigger]

10. Quote: "I certainly had no idea how little faith

Christians have in their own faith till I saw how ill their courage and temper can stand any attack on it."

[Skidmore]

9. The religious texts of the world serve two purposes...

1) A collection of the very early interpretations of human events in a world yet not understood
2) A collection of political ideologies shaping societies in which they were adopted.

They are wholly creations and tools of men for men.

[femrap]

12. And these men

hate women.

[texshelters]

13. Kudos to what you say

Well done Skidmore.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[intaglio]

11. Fundies claim that all morality needs a lawgiver

and the threat of punishment. They will (falsely) say that there is no morality without a deity.

[texshelters]

14. The weak minded need a diety to be moral

the truly moral don't need one.

There's nothing wrong with a deity, but don't use it as an excuse to hate and kill and be immoral.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[texshelters]

15. Jefferson discribed his Bible as "diamonds in a dunghill".

He read the texts like secular philosopher and cut and pasted the passages that brought forth what he thought was the true message of Jesus. He called it, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." That is yet another reason the Texans want Jefferson out of the Texas school books.

There are useful messages in there, as well as in the Tao, the Koran, the Upanishads, the poetry of Neruda and Rumi and the lives of those like Harriet Tubman who sacrificed for others.

The Bible as a whole text is not the best life guide.

Peace,
Tex Shelters